Bully

Films: Ferdinand
Format: DVD from Cortland Community Library on rockin’ flatscreen.

I don’t know why it seems like it’s taking me longer than usual to get through the 2017 Oscar winners than it has for other years in the past. That’s especially true for the animated feature nominees. I can’t say that I had a great deal of interest in Ferdinand going in. I’m familiar enough with the basic story, and I expected it would be tuned up for a modern audience with some modern jokes. And really, that’s what I got.

Ferdinand is based on “The Story of Ferdinand,” a tale of a bull who would rather smell flowers than fight a matador. Honestly, Ferdinand is a pretty easy character with whom to identify; I’d rather smell flowers than fight, too. What we’re going to get in the film that we don’t get in the movie is something much more clearly attacking what bullfighting is.

Cold Shoulder

Film: Ice Age
Format: DVD from Rockford Public Library on laptop.

I seem to ignore animated films on my Oscar list. I think the reason is that there are so comparatively few of them that I feel like the other categories are simply more pressing. Another part of it is that either my kids or I own a bunch of them, which makes difficult to find films more important concerns. I’ve decided that I should try to put them into the rotation more, though. It’s the category of film that I’ve ignored the most in general, and I should rectify that. With that in mind, I watched Ice Age, a nominee from 2002, the first year this category had a full slate of five nominees.

Ice Age is actually two stories, the main story and the tale of a saber-toothed squirrel named Scrat (“voiced” by director Chris Wedge). Scrat shows up in the film’s opening and at random times throughout the film, always as a comedic element. Scrat’s entire story is his attempting to hide an acorn that’s roughly the size of his head. Throughout the film, whenever Scrat appears, he attempts to hide the nut and has something terrible happen to him that prevents him from doing so.